Pilot ‘smoking e-cigarette’ forces Air China flight to plunge

A co-pilot who was smoking an e-cigarette is being investigated after his plane was forced to make an emergency descent when smoke entered the cabin.

The Air China Boeing 737 aircraft made the drop to 3,048m (10,000ft) after oxygen levels plunged in the cabin on Tuesday.

Oxygen masks were deployed during the descent on the flight from Hong Kong to the port city of Dalian in northwest China.

China’s Civil Aviation Administration said smoke seeped into the passenger cabin, which can carry up to 215 passengers, according to state media.

In the preliminary investigation, the co-pilot was found to be smoking an e-cigarette, China News said.

Smoke diffused into the passenger cabin and relevant air conditioning components were wrongly shut off, without notifying the captain, which resulted in insufficient oxygen, it quoted Qiao Yibin, an official of the regulator’s aviation safety office, as saying.

After dropping thousands of metres, the flight was able to climb again to continue to Dalian.